Category
Essays
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Law, Written in Spray Paint
“Paying attention to the temporary markings etched onto the asphalt, we are afforded a glimpse into the otherwise hidden world that lies below the city’s surface.”
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Syria’s Wartime Famine @100: “Martyrs of the Grass”
In the days leading up to the Muslim holiday of the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha) in October 2013, several Syrian clerics issued a fatwa …
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My Neighbor Octavia
For years, I knew Octavia E. Butler, the famed African American science fiction and fantasy writer, by her first name only. That was the way she introduced herself when I first met her back in the fall of 1999 …
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Breaking the ESL Student’s Imagination
The creation of vivid, readable, and faithful translations of literary works into English calls not only for considerable expertise in the original language, but also for consummate writerly skill in the so-called target language—usually, one imagines, that of a native speaker. So what could anyone expect to achieve by teaching literary translation to students of…
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Planning Happiness: A Postcard from Christianshavn, Copenhagen
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, an urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. This street used to be quieter, just an occasional bike rattling over the cobblestones along a pretty stretch of Copenhagen canal. The 19th-century residential apartments were built to service an older naval and industrial quarter. When we were renovating our…
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The High Power of the Lower Courts
In 2010 the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its legions of gun-rights supporters were on the verge of a constitutional revolution. …
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The Best Wall in the History of Walls: New Yorkers, Post-Election
On November 8, 2016, 80 percent of New York City voters cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. On November 9, Donald Trump’s victory …
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Is the Law Our Ally? Lessons from World War II
With Europe still reeling from the effects of World War II, the Allied forces set to work prosecuting a monumental trial …
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Virtual Roundtable on
“Description in the Novel”This roundtable on description in the novel took place on May 3, 2016, at the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University. Concluding the inaugural year of the Novel Theory Seminar, the roundtable featured presentations by Wai Chee Dimock, Heather Love, William Mills Todd III, J. Keith Vincent, and Cynthia Wall. To solicit brief position papers…
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A Storm of Words
Imagine a world where the hottest degree was an MPA, a Masters in Poetry Administration. Where a single poem could send global financial markets into a spin, where poets were the envy of all, and instead of shopping for material objects people ran out to buy poems to hang on the walls of their parlours. This…
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The Art of Protest
I marched with thousands on the streets of New York, asserting that “Trump is Not Our President” and “Love Trumps Hate.” So far we are free to assemble on Union Square in New York, to march up Fifth Avenue, to shout our anger, our fear, and our resolve. The street and soil are still ours to share. As I…
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Benidorm After Brexit and the “Burbuja”
In the early 1950s, Mayor Pedro Zaragoza left Benidorm, the sleepy coastal town he governed, to make the 300-mile trip to Madrid by Vespa. He had an audience with General Franco …
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Election Day Jitters: A Playlist
Happy Election Day! Once you’ve cast your ballot, there’s not much to do except sit around and wait. Or refresh Twitter every five seconds for rumors about early turnout and voter suppression, get your hopes raised by the New York Times and then dashed by FiveThirtyEight … it’s going to be a long, emotional day.…
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“The Sandman” @200
In 1816, only four years after the Brothers Grimm brought out a collection of fairy tales carefully selected and edited for the use of children, E. T. A. Hoffmann published his “Nutcracker and Mouse King.” To the extent that Hoffmann’s fairy tale introduced rather weird, even scary elements, his story departed significantly from what the…
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The Heartbeat of Chattahoochee Forest: Dahlonega, GA
This piece, marking the release of Bledsoe’s new novel, A Thin Bright Line, is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. Urbanites joke about rural hicks. Rural Southerners, especially, are the butt of jokes about their dogs, guns, and ignorance. But anyone traveling—with their eyes and hearts…
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Rape Culture Syllabus
I just start kissing them. Just kiss—I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Whatever you want. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything. —Donald Trump The video was released on Friday, October 7. At the presidential debate two days later, when CNN…
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Clever Man Outs Female Author: A Drama in 3 Acts
This month, we witnessed a contemporary version of a drama that we might call “The Female Author’s Disclosure.” It features the following dramatis personae: • The Heroine: a female author who decides to publish under an incognito. • The Confidantes: friends or associates who know her real identity, and are begged to maintain the…
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The Belle and the Bard
The First Folio held court in Amherst, MA, late last spring, when purple graduation balloons hovered over the green hills of the college and minivans lined its streets. For the younger siblings, the town offered cotton candy and carnival games; for the parents, a visit from Shakespeare himself. The famous book was displayed in a…
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The Taming of the Bard
We still take our Shakespearean directives from London, and this year’s news has been welcome: it was the summer of women and Shakespeare. The long reigns of Artistic Directors Mark Rylance and Dominic Dromgoole at Shakespeare’s Globe have ended, and with them went the pursuit of “original practices” that left female performers out of the…
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Reader of the Month: Alps
Happy #Caturday! Alps, friend of Public Books, ponders life in #GayBerlin. #RobertBeachy @bravohotelpapa @aaknopf A photo posted by Public Books (@publicbooksdotorg) on Sep 17, 2016 at 9:40am PDT
